Meta missed mobile, now builds OS for humanoid robots
▼ Summary
– Lerrel Pinto co-founded Fauna Robotics, which built a bipedal robot named Sprout, and left in 2025.
– Amazon acquired Fauna Robotics in March, including its 50 employees and the $50,000, three-and-a-half-foot-tall dancing humanoid Sprout.
– The acquisition allows Amazon to enter the consumer robotics market.
– Pinto later co-founded Assured Robot Intelligence with Xiaolong Wang, a former Nvidia researcher.
– Meta has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence.
Meta missed the mobile revolution. Now it’s betting big on humanoid robots. The company has acquired Assured Robot Intelligence, a startup co-founded by roboticist Lerrel Pinto and former Nvidia researcher Xiaolong Wang, to build an operating system for humanoid robots.
Pinto previously co-founded Fauna Robotics, the startup behind Sprout, a friendly, dancing bipedal robot that stood just three and a half feet tall. He left that company in 2025. Amazon snapped up Fauna in March for its $50,000 consumer robot, along with its 50 employees, marking a major entry into the consumer robotics space. Pinto then turned his focus to Assured Robot Intelligence, which he launched with Wang, a former Nvidia associate.
Now Meta is stepping in. The social media giant, long criticized for missing the shift to mobile, is making a calculated bet on the next frontier: embodied AI. By acquiring Assured Robot Intelligence, Meta gains access to cutting-edge humanoid robotics software and talent that could underpin a new platform for physical AI.
The deal signals Meta’s ambition to build the operating system for humanoid robots, a move that could position the company at the center of a future where robots work alongside humans in homes, factories, and warehouses. For Meta, this is not just about hardware , it’s about creating the software layer that powers the next generation of autonomous machines.
Pinto and Wang’s expertise in robot learning, manipulation, and locomotion will be critical as Meta races to catch up in a space dominated by Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and a wave of startups. The acquisition also gives Meta a foothold in the humanoid robot ecosystem, a market expected to explode in the coming decade.
Meta’s pivot to robotics comes as the company seeks new growth engines beyond advertising and virtual reality. With mobile already lost, Meta is betting that the next platform shift will be through robots that can walk, talk, and work , and it wants to own the software that makes them smart.
(Source: The Next Web)
